The Democratic Convention

Because I wrote about the Republican Convention, I inadvertently started paying attention to the Democratic Convention.

I event went so far as to watch the President speak on television.

So, how did the Democrats fare?

To start with, it is no surprise that they are obsessed with fairness. They are all but fixated with fairness in taxation. I didn't catch anyone explaining what was meant by fairness. I guess it means something like, "I pay less while they pay more," or whatever the hearer wants.

The Democratic Convention was very well scripted. Virtually all of the speakers, with the notable exception of Joaquin Castro, hit all of the main points: Abortion and contraceptives whether you can pay for it or not, the plight of the middle class, fairness, the auto bailout, killing Osama bin Laden, the economy is George W. Bush's fault, and the 150-year-old socialist slogan, 'Forward.'

The Democratic speakers, overall, did a better job of pretending to believe what they said than the Republicans did.

They very effectively bashed Mitt Romney and attacked what they presented as his platform. The Democratic Convention was much more high energy and connected with people very well on an emotional level.

In short, it was about as good as a party's convention could get.

The Republican Convention had a bit more "substance" to it. The Democratic Convention had more vague idealistic platitudes. But such is the differing nature of conservatives and liberals.

Both the Democrats and Republicans bulldozed their delegates on party matters.

The Republicans changed the rules to take power away from the Tea Party members over the objection of the majority of the delegates.

The Democrats adopted their 2012 platform unanimously. When they caught flack for removing God, God was reinserted over the objection of the majority of the delegates.

It was very refreshing to hear the Democrat delegates chanting USA, USA, USA! It started to seem like that had become the exclusive property of the Republicans.

On the other hand, when allegations of a Republican war on women is such an important part of the Democratic campaign, it struck me odd that the only U.S. President to have been accused of rape was the keynote speaker introducing President Obama.

But former President "Bubba" was such a charismatic speaker, the female delegates actually started to swoon.

The President's speech was inspiring if vapid and empty. You couldn't help but notice that he connected with his audience in a way reminiscent of Ronald Reagan.

Despite the fact that we know nothing about President Obama's medical history, educational history, who his friends and girlfriends were, who his classmates were, who his students were, or how he was able to travel to Pakistan when U.S. citizens were not permitted entry, he is a known political quantity.

President Obama personally walked General Motors through bankruptcy court to liquidate the interests of corporate bond and shareholders while protecting the union employees.

President Obama finally managed to socialize the American medical system and resumed federal funding of abortions in foreign countries. The president's administrative agencies have produced tens of thousands of regulations to regulate business owners and benefit their employees.

He has also opened the floodgates at the U.S. Treasury to provide more federally funded benefits to the citizenry than at any time in our history.

When 150 million people, in a nation of 300 million, receive some sort of payment or benefit from the federal government, it doesn't take much of a math wiz to calculate the electoral results.

As I said nearly a year ago, anyone who thinks that President Obama can't win re-election is either an ardent partisan or has substantial inside information.

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Scary, isn't it. I would say that the POTUS who says that he cares about the poor, and only wants to be help them, gas at the pump up over 100%. Closing coal fired power stations, only to see electric bills go up (he said he wanted them to "sky rocket"). But NOOooooooo, we are too blinded by our own selfish greed of getting something for nothing, we are going to vote him back in. Lord, I hope not. What a sad note that our institutions of higher learning are not teaching kids how to think, but what to think. If you have ever seen any man on the street interviews, it is very sad.

-- Posted by Conservative Dad on Sun, Sep 9, 2012, at 11:08 PM

Dear Charles -

First off, I'd like to express my own outrage for a moment - that Mitt Romney did not thank or even mention the 75,000 American troops fighting for our freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq in his nomination speech. How disrespectful!!! We're a nation at war, and Romney needs to act like it, and give thanks to the troops. Didn't expect such a ridiculous oversight coming from the RNC. Really disrespectful.

But thats not my reason for writing - once again, your column is almost obscenely ripe with misrepresentations.

I've only got time for one such flagrant lie right now.

Specifically, you claim that President Obama's college trip to Pakistan in 1981 is troubling because Americans "were not permitted entry". Obama did visit Pakistan in 1981, when he visited a college friend's family there, after seeing his mother in Indonesia and other college friends in India. Obama brought all this up himself in the last election - it was never a secret.

But its patently false that Americans were forbidden entry into Pakistan in 1981. Here's a link to a travel-section story about Lahore from the New York Times in 1981 - http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/14/travel... . They don't publish travel stories about places people can't visit. Not even the NYT. ;-] Because shortly after that article was published, the consul general in Lahore wrote a letter to the editor encouraging more Americans to visit. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/travel...

This is more birther, crypto-muslim nonsense. I'm surprised it still has currency, four years after the last election.

Remember your history, Charles. Pakistan was a flourishing (and quite liberal/secular) country until the revolution in 1977, when General Zia introduced martial law. Islamic sharia law was only introduced in 1984. Zia and Pakistan were close allies of the US during the 1980s, during the period of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There was no State Department ban on visitors to Pakistan until fairly recently.

Oh and by the way, from the news today - the US government just recouped $18 billion on the AIG bailout.

GM is alive, and Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Sorry, but there are enough real problems and interesting things in the world (and in politics) without having to invent fictions, which your column does on a nearly weekly basis.

-- Posted by NorvalJrJr on Tue, Sep 11, 2012, at 7:04 PM

And quickly, since you don't offer any real analysis of Obama's speech beyond calling it 'vapid but inspiring', here's a link for those who might be interested, to the Washington Post's video of the speeches with claim-by-claim fact-checking and analysis. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact...